Last week, we heard our first rumors about Samsung's Galaxy Mega line, which would introduce phones with 6.3-inch and 5.8-inch screens to Samsung's ever-growing Galaxy family. Today, Samsung made them both official: the phones are real, and they're coming to Europe and Russia in May. The phones will be available "globally," but "availability varies by market" and the phones will be "rolled out gradually" to other territories.

While the phones have large screen sizes, there's otherwise nothing particularly high-end about them. The 6.3-inch model comes with a 720p display (Samsung lists it only as "HD," but uses "Full HD" to indicate a 1080p display), a 1.7GHz dual-core processor from an unnamed manufacturer, 1.5GB of RAM, and 8 or 16GB of storage. The 5.8-inch model steps down to a 960×540 display, a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and only 8GB of storage. Both include Android 4.2, the latest version of Android.

We don't yet have pricing information for the phones, but given the specifications, we expect them to be a bit cheaper than handsets like the Galaxy S 4—there's probably a market for people who want a large, inexpensive phone but don't necessarily care about pixel density. Otherwise, it seems like a step backward to offer these comparatively low-resolution displays on these large-and-in-charge phones just weeks after introducing a 5-inch, 1080p flagship.

While ever-inflating screen sizes are the norm for Android phone manufacturers, Samsung in particular seems determined to make a phone for every hand size on the Earth. The Galaxy Mega, the Galaxy Note, and the Galaxy S lines are all good options if you've got big hands, but the 4-inch Galaxy S II Mini and the 3.2-inch Galaxy Young (which we saw at MWC among its larger brethren) have tiny hands covered, too.

Awful. The Mega 5.8 has a 960x540 resolution on a 5.8 inch display, given it a pixel density of 190 ppi. Regardless of how you feel about phones that are this large, that's just a giant step backwards in display quality. I assume this is so they can get away with a weaker GPU, but still. Terrible.

If a phone of that size, with a "weaker" pixel density led to significantly longer battery life (a lot easier to drive a 720p display than a 1080p display, plus so much more room internally for a physically larger battery) I could see the value.

I am a pretty big guy, I use XL gloves (which I've learned is REALLY hard to find.) which even most people who wear XXL clothes do not wear and I am still totally and absolutely amazed as to how people use these giganto phones. It's entirely essential to me that any phone I have be usable with one hand.

Releases to Russia first. Makes perfect sense. As we all know pockets are hilariously large in Soviet Russia. This is a throw back to the bread line days when it was expected that you should be able to get at least one full loaf in each pocket. Puny Imperialist American pockets could only hope to fit a phone of this stature.

The Galaxy S3 has sold pretty well and the total size of the device is about 6 inches in the diagonal. If they had narrowed down the bezels and simply extended the screen to it would take the entire space at the front of the phone, I would understand a 6inch phone.

But, since the bezel looks roughly the same size, I'm not too sure I would be the first to buy into this phone.

The Galaxy S3 has sold pretty well and the total size of the device is about 6 inches in the diagonal. If they had narrowed down the bezels and simply extended the screen to it would take the entire space at the front of the phone, I would understand a 6inch phone.

But, since the bezel looks roughly the same size, I'm not too sure I would be the first to buy into this phone.

What odd is there are people I work with who bought S3s and are then like, wow this phone is too big, I have to use two hands. I asked them why, and they said well all the new phones are big like this.

Seriously .. at what point do you stop trying to build a phone .. and start building a tablet with 3G / SMS / Voice capabilities?

I believe that's exactly their intent - cater to a market that largely uses their "smartphone" as an Internet appliance, but who still also need voice/SMS capabilities to justify the purchase.

I, for one, find I use my S3 for Internet/data the vast majority of the time (90~95% probably), and occasionally texting (5~9%). Calling is a minority use, and even then it's often through Bluetooth, rendering the size of the phone moot.

But joking aside, diversity in phone sizes, shapes, colors, styles, features, prices, manufacturers and carriers is a good thing. And even OSes. If you don't like Android, then don't buy it. Apple makes a phone, and if you prefer that, I hope you are happy with it.

Oh, and if you don't think 6.3 is big enough for you, then you can use an iPad mini as a phone (as pictured earlier in this discussion). :-)

But joking aside, diversity in phone sizes, shapes, colors, styles, features, prices, manufacturers and carriers is a good thing. And even OSes. If you don't like Android, then don't buy it. Apple makes a phone, and if you prefer that, I hope you are happy with it.

Oh, and if you don't think 6.3 is big enough for you, then you can use an iPad mini as a phone (as pictured earlier in this discussion). :-)

We're really not getting diversity so much - other than Apple and 1 or 2 phones from HTC and Sony last year, we are only getting REALLY big phones that have the current gen processors with large amounts of RAM and Storage. Otherwise to get top end performance, you have to get a REALLY big phone (though thankfully these new EVEN MORE MONSTEROUSLY LARGE phones are apparently made to crappy specs.)

Why can't manufacturers produce nice, well-spec'ed phones with different screen sizes? No doubt there are other considerations, but imagine if HTC or Samsung produced a line of phones with great specs (processor, RAM, GPU, screen res), whose only differences were screen sizes...3.5", 4.3", 5.1", and so on.

I find it interesting that smartphones are slowly getting larger and being increasingly used for data/text while (IIRC) the iPad Mini at 7" is selling better than the original, larger variants. It seems to me that smartphones and tablets are slowly merging into a unified 5-6" inch device.

There is not some overarching force that can decide, for the good of all, to restrict the choices on the market. (As much as some people might want there to be.) Nobody could stop Samsung from releasing 10,000 phones per year -- if they happened to think that was best for their business. And if they were wrong, then their competitors might get ahead of them.

I never said anything about 10,000 phones per year. You are making a straw man argument so you can knock it down.

But last time I checked, over a year ago, there were over 4,000 different Android phones. And the Android market seems to be doing just fine. When I look on AT&T at their online selection of phones, they have a variety of Android phones.

Why can't manufacturers produce nice, well-spec'ed phones with different screen sizes? No doubt there are other considerations, but imagine if HTC or Samsung produced a line of phones with great specs (processor, RAM, GPU, screen res), whose only differences were screen sizes...3.5", 4.3", 5.1", and so on.

Simple and easy for customers. Probably won't happen, ever.

Larger devices can afford to have better processing capabilities and longer battery life. It doesn't make sense to artificially gimp the larger devices just for the sake of uniformity.

I find it interesting that smartphones are slowly getting larger and being increasingly used for data/text while (IIRC) the iPad Mini at 7" is selling better than the original, larger variants. It seems to me that smartphones and tablets are slowly merging into a unified 5-6" inch device.

I think a lot of the discrepancy in sales betwwen the different iPads may have more to do with the mini being "the next new thing" than anything else. We see this effect with almost every new product Apple launches.

But joking aside, diversity in phone sizes, shapes, colors, styles, features, prices, manufacturers and carriers is a good thing. And even OSes. If you don't like Android, then don't buy it. Apple makes a phone, and if you prefer that, I hope you are happy with it.

We're really not getting diversity so much - other than Apple and 1 or 2 phones from HTC and Sony last year, we are only getting REALLY big phones that have the current gen processors with large amounts of RAM and Storage. Otherwise to get top end performance, you have to get a REALLY big phone (though thankfully these new EVEN MORE MONSTEROUSLY LARGE phones are apparently made to crappy specs.)

Funny, when I look at AT&T just now, they offer a variety of sizes of Android phones, including some small ones.

Last time I looked, over a year ago, there were over 4,000 different Android phones.

I know there is a trend towards larger displays. But that does not describe all new phones being introduced. I suspect the market is trying to find just the right size. They make what sells. At some point, someone will come out with the right combination of power, features, size, etc and have a hit on their hands. And if a company introduces what the market doesn't want, it will flop. (see: Windows 8)

If a phone of that size, with a "weaker" pixel density led to significantly longer battery life (a lot easier to drive a 720p display than a 1080p display, plus so much more room internally for a physically larger battery) I could see the value.

I suspect however, everything is cheaper on the phone top to bottom.

This would probably be correct. In the US at least, the advertising for the S3 is pretty widely spread, but the advertising for these XBOXHUEG phones seems primarily targeted at aspirational markets.